


The Forest Primeval

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 21:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2285253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair are out hiking...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Forest Primeval

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sentinel Thursday, prompt 'primal'

The Forest Primeval

by Bluewolf

As they hiked deeper and deeper into Cascade National Forest, Blair muttered absently, "This is the forest primeval."

"Huh?" Jim asked.

"It's from a poem," Blair said. "Something I read years ago. That's all I remember of it. It's just... this place. It's so primal... "

"It's a forest, Chief. What's primal - or primeval - about a forest?"

"It just feels... Turn your hearing down to normal."

"All right."

"So what do you hear?"

"Apart from your voice?"

"Ha, ha. What do you hear?"

Jim frowned. "Nothing." He sounded surprised.

"That's right. Sentinel hearing can probably make out a few things, but for non-sentinels, there's complete silence - what it must have been like millions of years ago, before life crawled out of the sea. When there were just plants. That's one of the meanings of 'primal' - existing from the beginning, before the appearance of life. That would be animal life, of course."

"Of course," Jim agreed. "You need animals to get sound. Plants aren't really well-known for chattering among themselves."

"Well, some scientists do think that plants can speak," Blair said, drawn, as easily as he always was, away from his original subject.

"Well, if they do, it's on a wavelength that even I don't hear," Jim said.

Blair grinned. There had been a time when Jim would never have made a joke about his senses. "Well, don't zone out trying to hear them."

"But, you know... " Jim frowned again. "It's odd, hearing... well... complete silence."

"I know," Blair said. "Even for me. Silence has its own sort of sound... "

"Or non-sound?"

"Or non-sound. A complete lack of sound can bother some people - how many people do you know that like some kind of background sound all the time? A radio, even set low, or the television on even if nobody is watching it?"

"Or they unconsciously hum something while they work... "

"Or tap their fingers - which can get very annoying for other people," Blair said.

A bird called somewhere not too far off, and was answered from a little further away. "And so the silence is broken," Blair went on. "The forest is no longer primal."

"And I'm turning hearing up a little," Jim said. "I wouldn't go out of my way to provide myself with background noise, but I find I'm not really happy with total silence."

"I don't mind it," Blair said. "Yes, I know I talk a lot... but if I'm completely on my own, I'm quite happy to live with total silence."

"In other words," Jim said, "you like visiting the 'forest primeval'."

 

**Author's Note:**

> The poem Blair quotes is Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


End file.
